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20100801

Quadruplegic robbed of Pathfinder speech-aid

2010-07-30 Forty-year-old ataxia-sufferer Zach Joubert, a quadruplegic, was robbed by two black men in a gold-coloured Mercedes while the disabled Afrikaner was riding in his shoprider-cart in the street near his Lynwood Rif, Pretoria home.

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Afrikaans-language daily Beeld reports that Mr Joubert suffers from a progressive, genetic muscular-ataxia disease which is leaving him increasingly disabled. He has waged a gutsy, life-long fight against the disease, even obtaining a B-Com degree in information-technology and a teaching diploma for the speech-disabled from the University of Pretoria.

His two attackers ripped it off and drove off with it. Beeld newspaper journalist Gerhard Pretorius said when they arrived to interview the victim, the police were also there trying to take a formal statement - assisted by his mother Yvonne, because he could no longer communicate properly

Mr Joubert 's little shoprider-cart was forced off the road by the two men in their flashy gold-coloured car. They climbed out and ripped the disabled Afrikaner off the cart so that he fell to the ground.

Then they tore off his Pathfinder speech-aid computer and drove off with it. Joubert explained that his glasses had fallen off and he was therefor unable to describe what the men had looked like.

Mom Mrs Joubert was livid. "I can't believe this sick society we are living in when people attack disabled people. It's nauseating,' she said. The Pathfinder looks like a laptop and she believes the attackers didn't know exactly what they were stealing.

Mr Joubert has waged a gutsy, life-long fight against his disease, even managing to obtain a B-Com degree in information-technology, and a teaching diploma for speech-disabled from the University of Pretoria. He was able to communicate only with the greatest of difficulty yesterday how he felt about the assault, explaining that 'it wasn't a happy experience'. . (pictures by Lisa Hnatowicz). http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Boewe-beroof-verlamde-voor-huis-20100730-2

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COMMENT – Anyone trying to contact the Beeld newspaper offices directly about this story will have a hard time finding contact information from this newspaper’s website - not even a telephone number to their editorial- or advertising departments…The only way you can reach them via their website is by filling in an onlineform http://www.beeld.com/FeedBack.aspx?iframe

The term "genocide" was coined by legal scholar Raphael Lemkin in 1943, writing:

'Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actionsaiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.

The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of personal security, liberty, health, dignity and lives of the members of such groups... '